THE SECRET TO WINNING HUGE ENTERPRISE DEALS IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

I would say about 80% of the salespeople I talk to want to learn just enough to get the deal, just enough to make their number. And this would seem like a wise and prudent strategy, except once you get that number, you got to do it again. And you're not compounding. You're not really learning. You're learning enough. You're not pushing yourself a little bit and you get too comfortable. And the thing that people don't get about the comfort zone is that it shrinks. It doesn't grow naturally. Naturally, it gets smaller and smaller and we don't notice it. We wake up one day and we're like, remember the time I felt comfortable doing that? I could do that all day. I really got fired up about this. And then all of a sudden you go, no, I don't do that anymore. In sales, we gotta— we have this constant need to be curious. And the curiosity people tend to lose. And it really is a fire inside of us. We have to have a why, because our brain is always asking, why am I doing this? That's why commission works so well. It gets us hyper-focused. It gets us away from playing stupid games. The smartest thing I ever heard from a rep that I worked with is like, you only get paid on the deals that close. Why waste your time on deals that won't close, can't close, will never close? And everyone thinks about deals logically. No, it's people. It's emotion. Not completely, but mostly emotion. Rationalized with logic. It's kind of like the inverse of why they buy. They buy for emotional reasons, justify with logic. They don't buy for emotional reasons and justify it with logic. That's how people work. We're going to get into a lot of these issues today in this interview, but if you can do one thing to become better at sales, it's not learning some tip or trick. It's teaching yourself or becoming curious. Why? Because curious gets you just a tiny bit outside that comfort zone, gets you away from the know-it-all, gets you thinking differently. Because we are only learning as fast as we want to, not as fast as we can. You could probably learn 10, 100 times faster. But do you want to, or do you need to? Most people only do what they need, not what they want. But to become great at sales, look at number one. Look in the mirror. That's the revenue machine. It's up to us to build it. Let's get into this interview. Oh, one other thing. The number one thing I've learned in training salespeople, training anything that's a performance, is that the knowledge is like 10%, maybe 20%. It's the doing, taking feedback, doing it again, that polishing process, those reps. That's where the skill is developed. That's where You really shine. But how do you do it? Ah, you can think about it. You can write down on paper. You can whiteboard. It's a good start. Love thinking. Thinking is a great thing. But it's the doing. It's the interaction with another human being. It's that question and pause and understanding and that connection. Well, how do we practice that? Brevity pitch has got it down. I am so excited about what this company is doing because, you know, sales training is great. You talk about things, you, you map things out, you draw out what's— what can go right, what can go wrong, what to do, checklist. All that stuff's great, but we still have to do it. We still have to talk to people, and that talking part Counts for a whole lot more than you think. It's the connection, it's the discovery, it's the creation, the co-creation that happens. And brevity pitch is not reading scripts. Can be, but it's not. It's AI, and AI that generates revenue. How? Because it understands your problem domain, your customer base. Let me give you an example. Let's say the hardest thing— you're selling into a foreign country, into a complex market, financial markets that require deep understanding of vocabulary. AI can do that. And Particular prospect who listens to the podcast was blown away when they saw a demo. Okay, this is just a demo where they customized it in less than a half hour to do this, where you could talk interactively and it would ask questions that were identical to what their prospects ask. And the person who set the demo up had no idea what the prospect asks. Just had the persona, the country, and that was it. Now imagine being able to converse with a potential prospect, do a discovery call as often as you want, different time, different ways each time. Oh, now you're seeing the potential. Grab your manager. Go to brevitypitch.com, sign up for a demo. Here we go.

Hey, Doug, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, tell us a little about yourself.

Yeah. Hi, Brian. I'm, I'm, uh, I've been in sales for almost 15 years. And of course, over the last, you know, since your star has really taken off in the last 4 or 5 years, your content has been really popular with me and my teams. I got my start in real start in software as a service at Salesforce in Chicago 10 years ago and found my way back to the Twin Cities where I'm originally from and worked for SAP there representing the Concur portfolio for, boy, a good 7 or 8 years. And now I'm a sales leader with Sprout Social based remotely. In Minneapolis. Cool.

Why'd you pick sales?

That's a really interesting question. I grew up as an athlete and like to keep score.

Yeah.

And I had a really formative moment when I was in college and I read Moneyball, which is a baseball book. Well, it's a business book manifesting as a baseball book, a story about Untapped markets. And I got into minor league baseball and I was working in minor league baseball and I was pulling tarp and writing press releases and realized that I was nobody's nephew in the baseball industry. And so I started selling group tickets and I said, hey, this is a way that I can prove that I'm any good at my job.

Yeah.

So I got, I got into sales that way kind of accidentally, which I feel like for my generation is a pretty, pretty normal— yeah, yeah. I accidentally ended up in sales and it changed my life is something that we hear quite often. So I matriculated to Salesforce and I've been on the road ever since.

Yeah. What do you like about it?

I think that it, being in sales challenges us in ways that it's difficult to simulate outside of this profession, right? I think that oftentimes you can get into roles or career paths where a lot of your job is explaining what the heck you do to your bosses, whereas in sales we can focus on what drives the business and the business that we're working for, our boss, whomever cares to know, can tell exactly what we're up to. And I think it oftentimes limits a lot of the politics that are in play in corporate life. There's a high value on delivering value to the people that can pay money. In exchange for something. And that requires us to kind of constantly be sharpening what we do, how we do it, thinking about how changing conditions are affecting our customers in a way that's difficult to get outside of sales. Yeah.

So you like the variety, the challenge of it? Yeah.

And it gets us into rooms that we otherwise wouldn't deserve, I guess, in quotes, to belong in, right? I think that if we continually get better and continue to think about how we can deliver value to clients and to customers, because we have to in sales, we end up getting into rooms that kind of make your eyes, your eyebrows raise a little bit, right? So I think that that's really a cool part of it.

Yeah. And how'd you become good at it? Well, what was the process and the journey like?

I think you have to be set up for success at least once to know what that's like, right? And if you experience some success and are able to find mentors that see something in you and invest in you and can coach you, Which I've been very lucky to have along, along the way. I think that that's a key. I've always been somebody that loves the scoreboard. So as a young seller in my early and mid-20s, it was something that, you know, when I stopped being an athlete, I thought was over, and now I would have to toil and do work like everybody else. But there's, there's no faking it at the end of the day or the week or the month or the quarter or the year, right? You know exactly where you stand. And I think that just being focused on that, I think that creates a level of focus that pulls you into work in a way that is very difficult to simulate otherwise. So I got good at it by trying hard, pairing a lot, and having good mentors.

And the drive was being number one or was the drive income or was the drive just simply being better than yesterday or?

Yeah, all of the above, all of the above. And I noticed that there was a path in software sales. I noticed this early to change my life and my children's lives in a way that's very difficult to do outside of professional sales. So I got that. I think I'm thankful that I, that clicked for me at an early age. I wasn't just thinking about clocking in and clocking out. And I've noticed that about people that have, whose careers have really taken off. And there are, of course, years where everything is kind of lined up and you have a great W-2, and those are fun years. But I think that There's a vision that is required. So I really noticed that this job has a chance to change lives in a way that very little else does. And it requires— in order to do that, it requires that we are constantly at work on ourselves and what we're doing, and we're constantly iterating. Because in this space of software that I'm in, The world is very different month to month. I think we saw that even since COVID During COVID I was selling travel and expense software and business travel stopped. So it was stressful at the time for everyone. But I think when I am at, you know, get to a place where I'm looking at retiring and I look at that place in my career, I'll recognize that The evolution that I was forced to go through because of our chosen profession of sales, uh, advanced my caliber of work at a rate that's quicker than it would have been otherwise because of all of those things changing what's possible for my life, changing what's possible for the people around me. Um, So yeah, being number 1 is great, especially when you're number 4 and then number 3 and then number 1. But I think when you stack good years on good years on good years on good years is what was really the big motivator for me.

And how did you do that? Because having a great year can be luck, timing.

Right, right.

Having multiple great years is a whole nother thing.

Yeah, I think that, and this is like a Clint Eastwood sitting on his porch, like sipping his coffee, you know, grunting at the kids, you know, like moment.

But I think that—

Right, exactly. I think that it takes the best careers that I observe people have, have had great balance between patience and understanding when to make a move. And I think more than anything, I'm a pretty good seller. I've cultivated a great network, which I'm very thankful for, but I've made good decisions about when to stay and when to go. And I think that in general, my generation is too impatient with when they deserve something else. And it's not that folks that have made good patient decisions haven't felt frustrated at times, right? Well, look at me, I just had a 150% year or whatever, or I wasn't set up for— my territory got smaller. I think that there requires sort of a medium horizon vision. So I think that the right amount of patience is really key to that question you're answering.

And what did you learn from your mentors?

A couple of things. One, I think early in my career, literally what to and what not to say. I think when we're, when we're very new in our career, we really need that, right? Like, never say this, always say this. I also learned that It's more about the customer than it is about us. You know, I have kids who are in school now and, you know, I work with my daughter who's, you know, learning new math and she's, you know, it's maybe oversimplified to say growth mindset versus fixed mindset, but just thinking, oh, I'm not smart or I'm not good enough because I don't get this. But understanding that the real smart, the real competence is the ability to learn new stuff. So early in my career, it was like, oh, my number isn't where I want it to be this month. But the real value is, well, what are you going to do about it then? And understanding that in deals, as I, you know, I got further into my career, it's less about my competence as a salesperson and more about the customer. And my competence as a salesperson has more to do with getting into conversations with customers. the right ones, right? So making it more about them being the customer or the client or the prospect and less about me is something that I learned from my mentors, especially the informal ones, right? The non, like, this is your onboarding person or this is who we're aligning to your senior leader. Those are the things, you know, because you look and find people that you really trust. either the way that they sell or the way that they built their career and what to say, what not to say early in my career and making it about the customer and therefore value and all those things later in my career have been the things that my mentors have given to me that I continue to try to pass along.

And what do you see yourself doing better than your competition? Either externally or internally?

I think the career building piece is a big part of it. I think that having the right amount of medium and long-term vision, and I think that being obsessed with how to be better next month, next quarter than I am now, I think pulls us back from the deals that we might be in right now and just trying to figure out how to get this one over the line, but really trying to harvest the lessons either from different phases of a career or the deals that we're in or the things that we learned from our customers and apply them going forward. That has been a strength of mine. And the other thing, as a, especially as a people leader, I think that it's more clear to me now than ever, you're nothing without great AEs. And I've been very fortunate to be able to recruit and develop and promote really talented AEs. And that covers up a lot of the flaws that I may have as a leader. And that's super important, you know, and that I think that regardless of the little ins and outs that our industry sees, you know, companies that grow fast and Fail quietly. I think talent and having surrounding yourself with talent is always important. And something that I'm not afraid to do as a leader is have people that report to me that are really, really good, be smarter than me, might be able to outsell me, but there's something that I can deliver to them. And I think that sometimes that holds other first and even second line leaders back is They're scared of having folks that report into them that are really, really competent. So I think it takes a level of humility and security to be able to really build a team that wants to be around you. And that's something I, for all my flaws, I think I do pretty well.

And what do you think is the difference between like the A players and the B players?

I think that they're focused more on effectiveness than internal cosmetic KPIs. I think that, you know, oftentimes when we're trying to coach what is usually a B or C player, we pull back to, okay, how much pipeline do you have? How much activity have you done? What does that activity look like? Right. And I think that as sales leaders, sometimes we like to do that because it's much more easy to measure those things than effectiveness. And you have to be willing to really get into the conversations to audit the effectiveness of the message and, and really honestly backing out to why is it we're choosing to talk to this account? Why are we investing our time and thoughts as we're trying to fall asleep at night and creative energy into this particular person or this account? Let's really sell ourselves on that first and then we'll have peace. So yeah, I think that effectiveness is the thing that makes the biggest difference, but it's the hardest to measure.

Well, when you start talking to somebody who gets it, it comes through pretty clearly, doesn't it?

It does. It does. And I think that it'd be great to be able to do that in an interview all the time. And usually, it's kind of like one of those things, like, I can't really explain it, but I know it when I hear it in an interview, or— and oftentimes, It can be really easy to revert for me to just a history of past performance. And why is it that you were able to do that? And if they have a story around that, that gives me conviction that that is a repeatable trick.

Other than they just liked me, or was my pure, you know, power of personality?

Yeah, you know what, that's a great topic, especially right now. Right?

Sure.

I feel like maybe during the post-COVID boom for a lot of the companies, there was a lot of value on just being friendly with everyone and trying to be in as many places as you possibly could because everybody was buying software. And now there's a real difference and you can tell the folks that are good at building rapport with the people that are good at building business rapport. You know, if they can— I think what we're seeing right now is, and I'm not sure, I'd be— you get a chance to talk to a lot of people doing a lot of different things, which is really cool. But I'd be curious your take too. But the people that can really deliver value to their customers, the people when their customers are having a hard time, or they're struggling with something, and they wonder, hey, what is my— what does XYZ think about this? Those are the people that can perform in all types of weather. And I think especially what we've seen since, you know, interest rates started going up, say mid-2021, those are the people that are really stretching out from the peloton.

Well, they have to either want to talk to you or have to. So it's easy to have them have to, right? But it's up to them, right? The want to.

Yeah.

You know, hey, I wonder what Doug thinks of this. He's a pretty bright guy.

Right. And I don't think it's— it's not typically because Doug's a good-looking guy or, you know, we know sports really well. Yeah, we both like Big Ten basketball. It's whenever I talk to Doug, I seem to learn something that I didn't before that makes me look good in front of my board or whatever. And so I think that, you know, what that means for us is preparation is really important. You know, really understanding kind of what's next, what's around the corner for our customers, those skills and those— that instinct, I would say instinct is maybe a good word for it, just to know that you have to provide that value rather than just assume.

Yes.

And I think there was a lot of really good performance in the SaaS ecosystem that was sort of masked by what is a good skill of sort of serial availability. Like I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna always be available for my customers. So when they want to buy something, I can help them do that to now sort of the tide is out. Maybe it's coming back a little bit, but when the tide is out, it's like, well, Shoot, we're consolidating our vendors, you know, which of these vendors are making us smart because everybody's just a line item on a balance sheet now. So yeah, it's hard to define, but it's tremendously valuable.

Well, I think it's the difference between having a service mindset where you're reactive to what your clients and prospects want Versus a sales mindset where you're in front of them kind of educating, persuading, enlightening them to the possibilities.

Yes. Selling with insights has never been more important. And here at Sprout Social, we've implemented Challenger since I've started at Sprout a year ago. And I think that that's so important that we're not just talking about the product. Exactly. And that's a unique challenge here at Sprout. G2 just named Sprout the number 1 software product. So we have to really think about the customer because our fallback is we have this beautiful product. So that's especially important for us in this current chapter of my career. Yeah, it's about outcomes and value and what is hanging out with this rep representing this vendor gonna do for my career, right? Or our business, especially when times are tough. Yeah.

And you're learning process. What's that like? Because the best reps always have that. Yes.

Well, you mean other than listening to the podcast, you mean? No, but I mean, I think that you have to be a voracious learner. I think you have to be obsessed with learning. I mean, it takes a certain amount of humility to feel that that's really important. I love to ask a question in interviews like, what's something that you taught yourself recently, or what did you read recently that made you adjust? Maybe not necessarily change, but adjust how you do your work every day. So I like to surround myself with people that can give me a good podcast recommendation or let me know what they're reading. Not just to be a nerd, but To make sure that we're all doing what we can to be ahead of whatever's happening right now. So I think that, you know, I have a regular set of podcasts that I try to listen to. I try to read something new that, and I really like to try to listen to especially sales stuff that I don't necessarily 100% agree with.

That's good. Yeah. Sort of.

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah.

It gets you riled up.

Yes. And it tests your convictions. And it's like, well, do I believe this because I've always said that I believe this and I'm defensive about XYZ? Or is this going to be something that's more valuable in the, you know, the second half of this decade than it was in the first half of this decade? So I think that that's really important. And I'm always looking for people that are of similar mind because none of us have all the answers. You know that you're in trouble when you talk to someone that thinks they've got it all figured out.

Well, that's kind of the B-player trap is the know-it-alls, right? They have a good run and they think it's 100% about them.

And they believe that what I've also noticed, and I've heard you talk about this, Brian, is they believe that everything that made them successful for whatever that run was is what's going to make them successful in the future. And so having a critical mind to understand what were the circumstances that led them to that run, Was it a certain skill set or a certain thing that you were talking about that led to that? I mean, I think that it's important to make sure that you find yourself in similar situations in the future if you're unwilling to change. But when you look to the future and if you're on top of things, then you're going to understand how either market conditions or trends or skills, how you're going to have to adapt to have your next run. Right?

Because let's say you come from a big brand. And now you go to a smaller brand. It's different.

It's very different, isn't it? I was just reading Frank Slootman's book, Amp It Up. He just left Snowflake. So of course, he's been in the news. And he talks about that, you know, that wanting culturally to hire leaders instead of followers and how there are a lot of followers that are very competent and where I have some sexy logos and rode the wave and they're good at doing big company stuff. But it's very important to understand how if you're pre-IPO or if you're in more of a startup phase or you're over-indexing on growth rather than profitability, how What you're asking of your team is going to be different. And I've definitely seen people in my network that have gone from big logo companies to small companies and they've brought a whole mess of people with them. And it's not that they're bad people, it's just that they— They're different skills. Yeah, absolutely. And it's crashed and burned. So yeah, to realize that I think takes a degree of humility that's hard to find in really high performing people.

Well, it takes that curiosity that you're talking about that, you know, like Michael Jordan went from basketball to baseball, right? It's a different game, different movements.

Right, right.

Different tempo.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's important to know what sort of work you want to do and what's interesting to you and knowing if you're going from one to the other. how you are going to have to adapt. So, you know, when I have people reach out to me looking for career advice or things like that, I ask them to pull back and think about those things. And because there's a lot of gaps there that are difficult to project, right? Unless you, you know, you have some experience there, or you have somebody that can really paint a picture. And I, when I see folk, good people make career missteps, that's typically why.

Yeah. And, you know, there's the confidence paradox in sales where you need the confidence to like present in front of executives, but then you need kind of the paranoia to analyze a deal.

Yes. Yes. You know, I've, I've, a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, I think, is the best salespeople are short-term pessimists and long-term optimists. And what that really means is I think that if you have a good handle on if this, if a deal or if an account relationship is going to go sideways, what is the most likely reason? If you have a good awareness for that, you're more likely to be able to do something about it.

Yeah.

Right. So, and I think that that's where the messaging sometimes falls flat on things like forecasting and opportunity rigor between leadership and frontline folks is, and there are definitely some poor leaders out there that want it because they want it. But I think when we have good conversations about, especially with high performers, like if you're a high performer, you should be able to forecast things very accurately.

Yes.

Because you, you understand the risk and you're paranoid about deals in a, in a business-healthy way so that you are in a position to do something about it before the deal's in shambles. Right.

Because when you hear a rep, whether it's yours or someone else's, at a QBR being so optimistic, having these big, huge round numbers, And of course, it closes on the last day of the quarter's forecast that you're like rolling your eyes and the manager's, well, what are you concerned about?

No, this thing's nailed.

They love us.

Yeah. Is that, there's a whole list of questions that makes me, my stomach twist.

And you know what?

It's not because I'm smarter than the rep. It's just that I've made those mistakes already.

Right.

And yeah, I think that that's exactly right, Brian, because it shows an inability to understand where the risk is, even if it's a great deal and the risk is only 10%. Well, that's 1 out of every 10 deals that you're going to invest your time into that's going to go sideways.

Right.

Right. So understanding what that is and understanding what that is that might be unique to your company or unique to your customer. is really important, especially if you've got not as tenured folks at your company. So yeah, all of the above.

And what tipped you into leadership?

Fills my cup. The people that know me best, when I was a kid, they probably thought, oh, Doug will end up being a coach or a teacher. What they didn't know is That I also like income.

So, so he's gonna take his time.

Right, right. So no, and I've always really gotten a lot of juice out of mentorship in general, and mostly because I've had such good mentors in my career. I know what that does. And, you know, I've been around long enough where I've been to weddings where people that I've worked with are getting married or You know, I attend the funeral of somebody that I worked with who's the— a parent. And when I look back at my career, those relationships are really the currency that I have that I take away. And it's not that that's just pure. There's a level of competency that deepens those friendships, those relationships. That is really valuable to me. And I think that especially in first-line leadership, you know, I try to strive to be somebody that folks who work for me say, my career path and what is possible for me and my family really changed when I went to go work for Doug. If I keep that as my North Star, I think I'll be fine. But when I look back, I— maybe the last 5 years, I could tell you exactly where I finished. But the— it gets a little blurrier as I look further back into the past. But what I do remember and what's serving me value now are the relationships that I built with partners, with colleagues, and a lot of customers as well that have made me smarter in my professional life. And those are people that I draw upon for career and life advice now. So that's really what fills my cup and Yeah, I just really enjoy being a leader because I think that it allows me to still sell a little bit. It allows me to move, have a bigger impact on the business, and it has a bigger impact on, on the humans that I'm working with.

And it sounds like you enjoy the intellectual challenge of the large complex sale.

Yes, I do. In my career, I've made it a conscious choice to try to move upmarket. Because I feel like it's hard and it's getting harder. And I think that I'm past the point in my career where I either want to be the one or commanding one to make 100 dials a day. And I'm really interested in solving complex business problems. And I think it's important to kind of know yourself. And like, I don't have an MBA. I think we're a few decades away from being able to upload one into your brain. But I learn so much from my customers and I learn a lot from the people that you have to sell with to do that effectively. So I love being— I love moving upmarket.

Well, hey, Doug, I really appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

You can get me on LinkedIn, linkedin.com/dougvoce. Always happy to connect for mentorship, for career advice, whatever. Appreciate your time, Brian.

He's a fun guy, great guy. And what I learned from that is, you know, we talk about growth mindset. And I think back as like in school, wondering why everyone thought it was fixed. That you're only so smart. You only had so much capacity. And then I got out of school and I kind of became a self-taught software engineer. Yeah, they taught stuff at school, but it was 20 years old. It wasn't really usable, wasn't applicable in the current world. And I taught myself. Now, Was I brilliant? No. How do you learn? You play, you get curious, trial and error. Um, and I really didn't have anybody else at the time that I could lean on, and it was pre-internet, so there wasn't really all the stuff that they have today. But today we have the internet. Today you can learn from the world's best coaches for free, for a little bit more than free. Like, this is free. Here you are listening to a couple of other salespeople chatted up about sales. Hopefully some things you can connect to. Hearing other salespeople and what they go through, their journey, hopefully becomes Something you can bond, something that can inspire you. But what's the next step? How about if you really invest it just a little bit, maybe a couple hours a week, a couple of bucks a week, to really become great? That's what I'm doing at b2brevenue.com. Letter B, number 2, letter B, revenue. And I have 2 major courses. One is Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. This is how to start a conversation with a stranger, not a cold call, not a cold email, a conversation. We don't do that anymore. Everything is transactional. And this is why cold outreach doesn't work that well anymore. Everyone treats it like a transaction, including the prospect. And the prospect's like, well, you called me. I don't know what you're talking about. And even if I did, I don't have a need. I'll call you if I need something. That's what happens in a transaction. And you can push back and handle objections and follow up.

Great.

Or you can start a conversation and listen and talk, ask questions, get to know each other, find out what they're up against. And all of a sudden, magic happens. People call this old-school selling. I go, this is selling. What is new-school selling? Sending your value proposition via email 100 times a day? I think that's marketing, isn't it? That's an ad. That's not sales. That's just an advertisement. Sales is talking with people, getting to know them as a person, not as a prospect. This is not old school. This is selling because this is how the best people do it. I've got, what, 1,000 of these podcast interviews with the world's best salespeople. No one is talking and bragging that they can send more email every day using, you know, super email ChatGPT-17. It just— who cares? If that worked, everyone would do it. Well, everyone is doing it, not because it works, but because it's easy and it's the only thing they know. Because anyone can write an email. Very few people can start a conversation and get a meeting. But I can show you how. I break it down into tiny little steps. It doesn't feel right at first because it's not talking about you, your product, your company. So you can't imagine how it could possibly work. But here's the key. We're not the buyer. They are. We got to talk about them. That's why we need curiosity. If you really want to become great at sales, don't learn just enough. Learn a little bit more. And then you become curious. You tip the boat a little bit. Everyone wants to be a know-it-all. That, that's the wrong direction. Be curious. Be, be that person who's wondering how it works, wondering why it can't work better. And all of a sudden you have lots of issues to talk about that are important instead of how much does it cost, what's it do, how's it compare against the competition. That's transactional. That's the commodity trap. And once you're in, it's can't get out. So if you really want to become great at sales, go to b2brevenue.com and sign up today. Here's how the courses work. It's really simple. If you need leads, pipeline, Start the Conversation, Get the Meetings, the course. If you've got pipeline but deals are taking forever, they're not closing, they're stalling, and/or they're shrinking down to tiny little deals, And you want to have more control over it, understand how companies buy, how to focus on the deals that will close, Closing the Complex Sale is the one for you. They both have access for 1 year. It doesn't take a year to consume all the content, but it takes a while to become good at it.

Right.

If you've been in sales, you know, how long does it take to learn how to sell?

A couple years?

But to become good at it is a lifetime. To become great at it is something few people do, less than 1%. Be in that 1%. For the price of a lunch or a dinner, I'd like to be in that 1%. I was thinking yesterday after office hours, I was like, boy, I wish I had this when I started sales. Even when I was in sales, I used to love— we'd meet for happy hour and chatted up about deals and issues and how'd you handle this. And I loved that because it was not just the camaraderie, it was different angles at the problem, different approaches, different vantage points, different insights. And it was really fun because, you know, the training that they give you is kind of superficial. The books are idealistic, don't really match the real world or what we're doing. This is why you need like an online course that's interactive. It's not me talking to you, it's me talking with You and us talking together. So you feel like you're part of something. And it comes with an app so you can download the content and listen to it when you're on a walk, go for a run, hang out, catch up on your one-on-ones and your office hours. And you'd be surprised how good you can become. This isn't stuff they teach anywhere else. You know, who really knows how to do a complex sale? Some guy who was number 7 on the team at Salesforce? I don't think so. Or somebody who just happened to be at Oracle at the time a big deal went down? Ah, let me tell you about those portfolio companies. And there's nothing against them. I'm sure they're great salespeople. But did they understand how to get a new product into a new account? That's not what they did. They brought in a tired old product into a tired old account. Okay, it takes a skill. When my company got bought by IBM, I saw this all the time. You know, they would do these what they call enterprise license agreement, and everyone would throw their crap on it. And if the customer happened to want one of those things, boom, the rep thought they sold something. That's not selling. If you have that job, it's great. And here's the real secret. One of those mega deal people I talked to after interviewing them, they made less than $200K. That tells you the value that they're bringing. They're not 7-figure salespeople. It's just get serious about your career. It's about skill. You know, as you get bigger and bigger deals, yes, the commission goes up, but your skill has to be there. b2brevenue.com.

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